DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
The amendments were received on 5/4/2026. Claims 1-27 are pending where claims 1-27 were previously presented.
Claim Objections
Claims 15 and 24 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 15 recites the phrase “a first op…” in the last limitation where all other occurrences of the word ‘Op’ have the letter ‘o’ capitalized. Please conform all instances of ‘Op’ to a standard form to help ensure consistency and reduce any misinterpretations of the term on why one is capitalized and others are not.
Similarly, claim 24 recites the phrase “…on a per operation (op) basis” in the last limitation of the claim. Please conform all instances of ‘Op’ to a standard form to help ensure consistency and reduce any misinterpretations of the term on why one is capitalized and others are not.
Claim 15 recites the word “Inode” in the acquire a DGM lock limitation where all other instances of the word are lower case. Please conform all instances of ‘Inode’ to a standard form to help ensure consistency and reduce any misinterpretations of the term on why one is capitalized and others are not.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. The applicant amended claim 16 to include new limitations including a discussion of a counter to count various operations; however, upon review of the specification, the Examiner did not find any corresponding paragraph that discussed the newly added claim amendment. Therefore, it appears the new amendment is drawn to new matter and is rejected as such.
With regard to claims 17-20, these claims depend upon claim 16 (either directly or indirectly) and inherit the same deficiencies as claim 16 as discussed above and are rejected for the same reasons as claim 16 as discussed above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Narasingarayanapeta et al [US 2022/0357854 A1] in view of Natanzon et al [US 10,061,666] and Lin et al [US 2016/0004718 A1].
With regard to claim 15, Narasingarayanapeta teaches a distributed storage system comprising: one or more processing resources; and one or more non-transitory computer-readable medium, coupled to the one or more processing resources, having stored therein instructions that when executed by the one or more processing resources cause the one or more processing resources to: establish bi-directional synchronous replication between a primary copy of data of one or more members of a first consistency group (CG1) of a primary storage site and a secondary copy of data of one or more members of a second consistency group (CG2) of a secondary storage site
receive a primary-side operation (first Op) at the primary storage site from a client (see paragraph [0047]; the system can recite requests from a client);
send a message to a distributed inode level dependent graph manager (DGM) (see paragraph [0149]; the system can utilize a DGM);
execute the first Op for the inode of a file system of the primary storage site; replicate the first op to the secondary storage site; and execute the first op for the second inode of a file system of the secondary storage site (see Figure 12 and paragraphs [0149]-[0151]; the system allows for a first Op to be executed at the primary and then replicated to the secondary site).
Narasingarayanapeta does not appear to explicitly teach:
with each site having concurrent read/write access for serving inflight input/output (I/O) operations;
in response to the message, the distribute inode DM to first acquire a local DGM lock for an inode for the first Op on the primary storage site, to manage dependencies at an inode level during bidirectional synchronous replication of inode dependent operations, and to serialize metadata operations and data operations when metadata and data operations are dependent at an inode level on the same first inode, thus preventing data corruption;
acquire, with the distributed inode level DGM, a DGM lock for a second inode of the secondary storage site to ensure that metadata and data on the same second inode are serialized, thus prevent data corruption;
and execute the first Op for the second inode of a file system of the secondary storage site unless a conflict is detected with a second Op that causes the first op to suspend on the secondary storage site.
Natanzon teaches with each site having concurrent read/write access for serving inflight input/output (I/O) operations (see col 14, lines 64-66; col 15, lines 17-29; col 13, lines 46-61; the system allows the various storage sites to be able to handle concurrent read/writes).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the replication schemes of the respective storage sites of Narasingarayanapeta by allowing each site to be able to handle operations concurrently as taught by Natanzon in order to reduce latency by not having every operation wait for all preceding operations in the system to be processed.
Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon do not appear to explicitly teach:
in response to the message, the distribute inode DM to first acquire a local DGM lock for an inode for the first Op on the primary storage site, to manage dependencies at an inode level during bidirectional synchronous replication of inode dependent operations, and to serialize metadata operations and data operations when metadata and data operations are dependent at an inode level on the same first inode, thus preventing data corruption;
acquire, with the distributed inode level DGM, a DGM lock for a second inode of the secondary storage site to ensure that metadata and data on the same second inode are serialized, thus prevent data corruption;
and execute the first Op for the second inode of a file system of the secondary storage site unless a conflict is detected with a second Op that causes the first op to suspend on the secondary storage site.
Lin teaches first acquire a local DGM lock for an inode for the first Op (see paragraphs [0053], [0058], [0064], [0014]-[0015], [0137], [0139], and [0141]; the system can allow for range locks on files/objects in storage to be acquired and be able to perform those respective modifications while prevent/suspending any other operations from modifying any of the data in the acquired write range locks).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the distributed storage system of Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon by utilizing lock controller with the ability of using range locks as taught by Lin in order to allow for greater throughput and processing of users’ requests by being able to allow fine-granularity file access and sharing that allows concurrent access to the file(s) while also ensuring that exclusive writes can occur on a smaller section of the file thus allowing other processes to still access or simultaneously edit other parts of the file without causing any conflicts.
Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon and Lin teach in response to the message, the distribute inode level DGM to first acquire a local DGM lock for an inode for the first Op on the primary storage site, to manage dependencies at an inode level during bidirectional synchronous replication of inode dependent operations, and to serialize metadata operations and data operations when metadata and data operations are dependent at an inode level on the same first inode, thus preventing data corruption (see Narasingarayanapeta paragraphs [0149], [0182], [0160], and [0196]-[0199]; Lin, paragraphs [0053], [0058], [0064], [0014]-[0015], [0137], [0139], and [0141]; the system can utilize a DGM and have means to allow for range locks on files/objects in storage to be acquired and be able to perform those respective modifications while prevent/suspending any other operations from modifying any of the data in the acquired write range locks);
acquire, with the distributed inode level DGM, a DGM lock for a second inode of the secondary storage site to ensure that metadata and data on the same second inode are serialized, thus prevent data corruption; and execute the first Op for the second inode of a file system of the secondary storage site unless a conflict is detected with a second Op that causes the first op to suspend on the secondary storage site (see Lin, paragraphs [0014]-[0015], [0137], and [0139]; see Narasingarayanapeta, paragraphs [0149]-[0151], [0182], [0160], and [0196]-[0199]; the system can acquire range locks on the respective file at the storage site and when the replicated operations/data is sent to the secondary site).
With regard to claim 16, Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon and Lin teach wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processing resources to: maintain a counter to count metadata operations and data operations (see Narasingarayanapeta, paragraphs [0165]-[0166]; the system has means to keep track of the various operations including the quantity or count of them);
determine if the first Op is dependent on the second Op for the second inode; and wake up the first op after a conflicting second op completes (see Narasingarayanapeta, paragraph [0149]; Lin, paragraph [0139]; the queued operations will wake up or be selected to be processed (retried) when the conflicting operations have completed).
With regard to claim 17, Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon and Lin teach wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processing resources to: execute the first op on a file system of the secondary storage site (see Lin, paragraphs [0014]-[0015], [0137], and [0139]; see Narasingarayanapeta, paragraphs [0149]-[0151]; the system can acquire range locks on the respective file at the storage site and when the replicated operations/data is sent to the secondary site).
With regard to claim 18, Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon and Lin teach wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processing resources to: after execution, release the DGM lock on the inode of the secondary storage site (see Lin, paragraphs [0011] and [0142]; the system can release the lock after executing the operation).
With regard to claim 19, Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon and Lin teach wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processing resources to: release the DGM lock on the inode on the primary storage site before responding to the client (see Lin, paragraphs [0011], [0139], and [0142]; see Narasingarayanapeta, paragraphs [0149]-[0151]; the system can acquire range locks on the respective file at the storage site and release them after completing the operation).
With regard to claim 20, Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon and Lin teach wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processing resources to: suspend the first op on the primary storage site or on the secondary storage site if a conflicting operation is in progress (see Lin, paragraphs [0014] and [0139]; various operations can be suspended/queued if it conflicts with operations already in progress, i.e. already acquired the lock).
Claims 21-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Narasingarayanapeta et al [US 2022/0357854 A1] in view of Natanzon et al [US 10,061,666], Lin et al [US 2016/0004718 A1], and Hallak et al [US 2021/0349643 A1].
With regard to claim 21, Narasingarayanapeta a computer-implemented method for a delegation process comprising: establishing bi-directional synchronous replication between one or more members of a first consistency group (CG1) of a primary storage site and one or more members of a second consistency group (CG2) of a secondary storage site
Narasingarayanapeta does not appear to explicitly teach:
with each storage site having concurrent read/write access for serving inflight input/output (I/O) operations;
initiating acquiring, with a primary sequencer of the primary storage site, delegation to a range of a file or object of a member of the CG1 for a first write Op;
acquiring, with an overlap write manager (OWM), a range lock for the first write Op;
determining that a local delegation on the primary storage site is available for the first write Op when no conflicting Op operates on same range as the first write Op;
and writing the first write Op on the primary storage site, wherein the primary sequencer grants and revokes delegation to any range while a secondary sequencer of the secondary storage site requests delegation from the primary storage site, wherein the delegation to the range for the first write Op expire automatically once a bi-directional synchronous data replication relationship between the CG1 and CG2 is Out-of-Sync (OOS).
Natanzon teaches with each storage site having concurrent read/write access for serving inflight input/output (I/O) operations (see col 14, lines 64-66; col 15, lines 17-29; col 13, lines 46-61; the system allows the various storage sites to be able to handle concurrent read/writes).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the replication schemes of the respective storage sites of Narasingarayanapeta by allowing each site to be able to handle operations concurrently as taught by Natanzon in order to reduce latency by not having every operation wait for all preceding operations in the system to be processed.
Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon do not appear to explicitly teach:
initiating acquiring, with a primary sequencer of the primary storage site, delegation to a range of a file or object of a member of the CG1 for a first write Op;
acquiring, with an overlap write manager (OWM), a range lock for the first write Op;
determining that a local delegation on the primary storage site is available for the first write Op when no conflicting Op operates on same range as the first write Op;
and writing the first write Op on the primary storage site, wherein the primary sequencer grants and revokes delegation to any range for the primary storage site and the secondary storage site while a secondary sequencer of the secondary storage site requests delegation from the primary storage site, wherein the delegation to the range for the first write Op expire automatically once a bi-directional synchronous data replication relationship between the CG1 and CG2 is Out-of-Sync (OOS).
Lin teaches initiating acquiring, with a primary sequencer of the primary storage site, delegation to a range of a file or object
acquiring, with an overlap write manager (OWM), a range lock for the first write Op (see paragraph [0103] and [0107] and [0138]; after being granted ownership the system can request the and receive/acquire a range lock);
determining that a local delegation on the primary storage site is available for the first write Op when no conflicting Op operates on same range as the first write Op (see paragraphs [0138]-[0139] and [0099]; the system can determine if a delegation/authorization for a storage site/cloud controller is available when there is no conflicting locks for the same requested range);
and writing the first write Op on the primary storage site (see paragraph [0081]; the system can write the operation at the appropriate storage site).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the distributed storage system of Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon by utilizing lock controller with the ability of delegation and using range locks as taught by Lin in order to allow for greater throughput and processing of users’ requests by being able to allow fine-granularity file access and sharing that allows concurrent access to the file(s) while also ensuring that exclusive writes can occur on a smaller section of the file thus allowing other processes to still access or simultaneously edit other parts of the file without causing any conflicts while also reducing network congestion and latency issues by authorizing cloud controllers/storage sites to be able to respond to other requests that falls within their granted/authorized range lock independently without contacting any other storage site/cloud controller.
Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon and Lin teaches initiating acquiring, with a primary sequencer of the primary storage site, delegation to a range of a file or object of a member of the CG1 for a first write Op (see Narasingarayanapeta, Figures 1 and 3; see paragraphs [0099], [0026], [0047]-[0048], and [0074]; Lin, paragraphs [0081] and [0099]-[0100] and [0138] and [0141]; a particular storage site can receive permission/delegation/authorization to be a lessor or lessee and can then respond to various operations);
wherein the primary sequencer grants and revokes delegation to any range or the primary storage site and the secondary storage site while a secondary sequencer of the secondary storage site requests delegation from the primary storage site (see Lin, paragraphs [0095]-[0097] and [0110] and paragraph between paragraphs [0091]-[0092]; see Narasingarayanapeta, paragraph [0047]; the system has means to revoke/break locks based on receiving other requests).
Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon and Lin teach Out-of-Sync state (see paragraphs [0081]-[0082] and [0086]; the system can detect when OOS occurs including based on a network failure) but do not appear to explicitly teach:
wherein the delegation to the range for the first write Op expire automatically once a bi-directional synchronous data replication relationship between the CG1 and CG2 is Out-of-Sync (OOS).
Hallak teaches wherein the delegation
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the locking scheme of the distributed storage system of Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon and Lin by being able to revoke locks for out-of-sync storage sites as taught by Hallak in order to provide a node/site failure handling mechanism that can revoke the respective lock and associated delegation from a failed node/site including from network failure so that other clients/requests are able to acquire that lock on the respective data to avoid delays for other clients that are waiting for a lock to be freed organically (i.e. time period ends).
Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon, Lin, and Hallak teach wherein the delegation to the range for the first write Op expire automatically once a bi-directional synchronous data replication relationship between the CG1 and CG2 is Out-of-Sync (OOS) (see Hallak, paragraphs [0023], [0050], and [0059]-[0060]; and Figure 3; see Lin, paragraph [0074]; the system can determine when a failure occurs, i.e. OOS, and be able to revoke locks/delegations).
With regard to claim 22, Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon, Lin, and Hallak teach wherein the primary sequencer of the primary storage site and the secondary sequencer of the secondary storage site both store granted delegations and process Ops locally until a delegation is revoked by the primary storage site (see Lin, paragraphs [0137]-[0138], [0141], [0095], and [0110]; see Narasingarayanapeta, paragraph [0047]; the system has means to revoke/break locks based on receiving other requests where different storage sites can have respective delegations/authorizations for managing some range of data that can be processed locally).
With regard to claim 23, Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon, Lin, and Hallak teach wherein the primary sequencer revokes a delegation when receiving a local request that is dependent on an existing granted delegation to the secondary storage site (see Lin, paragraphs [0141], [0095], [0110], and paragraph between paragraphs [0091]-[0092]; the primary cloud controller can revoke delegation to a secondary site based on received requests).
With regard to claim 24, Narasingarayanapeta in view of Natanzon, Lin, and Hallak teach wherein delegations expire automatically once the bi-directional synchronous replication relationship between CG1 and CG2 transitions from being Insync to Out-of-Sync (OOS) (see Hallak, paragraphs [0023], [0050], and [0059]-[0060]; and Figure 3; see Lin, paragraph [0074]; the system can determine when a failure occurs, i.e. OOS, and be able to revoke locks/delegations),
wherein the primary sequencer delegates management of a specific regions of a file or object to the secondary sequencer and this delegation allows the secondary sequencer to have exclusive access, eliminating a need to explicitly coordinate with the primary sequencer on a per operation (op) basis (see Lin, paragraph [0141]; the system can allow a primary sequencer or owner cloud controller to delegate/authorize secondary sequencers/cloud controllers exclusive access so that the lessee doesn’t have to send other requests back to the lessor thus reducing the lessor’s load).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-14 are allowed.
Claims 25-27 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claim 25 recites additional details regarding the order of operations and relationships between the different network components where the respective details for the limitations do not appear to be taught or fairly suggested by the prior art of record.
Claims 26 and 27 depend upon claim 25 and are allowable over the cited prior art based on its dependency.
With regard to claims 1 and 8, these independent claims were amended to incorporate new limitations that describe particular steps of the particular process in the claims in a level of detail that do not appear to be taught by the prior art of record. A further search was conducted; however, no new references were found that, when combined, would appear to teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations as recited.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments (see the third and fourth paragraphs on page 12) with respect to the objections of claims 1-14 have been fully considered and are persuasive. However, the amendments also incorporated other limitations that, as noted above, are being objected to. Therefore, claim objections are still outstanding.
Applicant's arguments (see second to last paragraph on page 12 through the first paragraph on page 14) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that the various cited prior a cited prior art references do not teach the amended limitations. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant's arguments fail to comply with 37 CFR 1.111(b) because they amount to a general allegation that the claims define a patentable invention without specifically pointing out how the language of the claims patentably distinguishes them from the references. As illustrated in the 35 USC 103 rejections, locks can be acquired which ensure that the respective data (or metadata) that is locked is not corrupted by other processes attempting to write/modify/alter the same data that the entity with the acquired lock is writing/modifying. Additionally, as noted in the 35 USC 103 rejections, certain limitations are rejected based on the teachings of the combination and not on a single reference alone. Thus, as can be seen, the cited prior art references teach, or fairly suggest the claim limitations as recited.
Applicant's arguments (see the second paragraph on page 14) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that the combination of the three references teach different fundamentally different management layers that have to be integrated into a single unified transaction and that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that forcing a DGM to interact with file-level serialization as claimed is non-trivial architectural redesign versus a simple combination. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. As illustrated in the 35 USC 103 rejections, the Narasingarayanapeta reference teaches a distributed system with an identification in paragraph [0182] that the distributed system can avoid conflicting operations via serialization; additionally, the primary reference already deals with a file-system. The Lin reference illustrated a mechanism to help prevent conflicting operations in a distributed system with shared or concurrent access via well-known means such as locking; which to one of ordinary skill in the art of computer science including file/database management would know how to implement such a fundamental feature of concurrent/shared access to a system. Therefore, applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
Applicant's arguments (see the last paragraph on page 14 for section 2 through end of section 2 on page 15) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues (i) that Lin’s teachings don’t address the amended limitations since Lin’s locks are only for one or the other but do not prevent corruption by serializing both types of data and (2) the DGM checks in Narasingarayanapeta are for transactional dependencies which is distinct from claim’s requirement of a physical inode lock that protects the integrity of the storage block’s metadata and data concurrently . The Examiner respectfully disagree.
With regard to argument (i), the Examiner notes that, in view of the new amendments, the 35 USC 103 rejection was updated with the Narasingarayanapeta illustrating the serializing limitation. In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
With regard to argument (ii), the Examiner notes that the combination provides means to protect the integrity including teachings from Narasingarayanapeta in paragraphs [0182] and [0160] about the various types of operations and being able to serialize conflicting operations. Therefore, in response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Applicant's arguments (see the second paragraph on page 14) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that there is a missing link for inode serialization since Narasingarayanapeta does not use locks for a first index node (inode) for a first Op on a primary storage site to manage dependences and serialized operations while Lin teaches byte-range locking but lacks DGM architecture and bidirectional synchronization. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The Examiner notes that the rejection is based on the teachings of Lin modifying Narasingarayanapeta, in particular, Narasingarayanapeta discusses in paragraph [0182] that the distributed system can avoid conflicting operations via serialization; with Lin illustrating a process of managing dependencies by locking files (inodes) or portions thereof to prevent data corruption (i.e. a first client modifying data that a second client is also modifying therefore data is corrupted since the first client’s data is changed and when the first client reviews their work they see wrong data than what they were expecting). Therefore, as seen from the teachings of the prior art and the identified problem known to Narasingarayanapeta about conflicting operations (“…may serialize conflicting operations, for example, to preclude concurrent performance of WRITEs having a range overlap on the same file”), Lin’s teachings of write locks for overlapping ranges to enable concurrent access while serializing operations for the same range of a file (see Lin, paragraph 8) thereby enhancing Narasingarayanapeta’s teachings by providing means to allow concurrent access to the same file/inode while still providing data security protections to prevent data corruption with byte-range locking. Therefore, as illustrated in the teachings of the prior art, there is reasons and motivation to combine Lin’s teachings with Narasingarayanapeta as discussed in the 35 USC 103 rejection above and in the above discussion too, thus applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
Applicant's arguments (see section 4 starting in the last paragraph on page 15 through the top of page 16) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that the Examiner’s combination relies on hindsight bias for picking DGM from one reference, byte-range locks from another, and replication suspension from a third reference with no specific suggestion from Narasingarayanapeta to use the DGM for inode-level data/metadata suggestion or suggestion in Lin to delegate its byte-range locking thus the combination is improper “mosaicking” of disparate features. In response to applicant's argument that the examiner's conclusion of obviousness is based upon improper hindsight reasoning, it must be recognized that any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning. But so long as it takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from the applicant's disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper. See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971). As illustrated in the 35 USC 103 rejections, Narasingarayanapeta already teaches serialization of the different operations where the rejection provides articulated reasons and rationale to illustrate a purpose for combing Lin, in particular, to complement Narasingarayanapeta’s teachings by illustrating the usage of locks and locking to serialize operations while being able to utilize byte-range locking so that multiple users can access the file/inode simultaneously if their requests don’t conflict with each other thereby allowing greater throughput of commands by clients/users. Therefore, applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
Applicant's arguments (see fourth to last paragraph on page 16 through third to last paragraph on page 16) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that the combination would lack the various amended limitations. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant's arguments fail to comply with 37 CFR 1.111(b) because they amount to a general allegation that the claims define a patentable invention without specifically pointing out how the language of the claims patentably distinguishes them from the references. As illustrated in the updated 35 USC 103 rejections above, the combination of references teach the claim limitations as recited.
Applicant's arguments (see second to last paragraph on page 16 through the last paragraph on page 17) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that the various cited prior a cited prior art references do not teach the amended limitations. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant's arguments fail to comply with 37 CFR 1.111(b) because they amount to a general allegation that the claims define a patentable invention without specifically pointing out how the language of the claims patentably distinguishes them from the references.
Applicant's arguments (see section 1 on page 18) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that the cited prior art references do not teach delegation of a range expires automatically once the bi-directional synchronous data replication relationship is out-of-sync. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. In particular, the applicant argues that (i) the prior art is deficient since Natanzon focuses on maintaining or recovering sync and does not explicitly teach a mechanism where a specific delegation is revoked or expires solely and automatically because of out-of-sync state between different consistency groups; and (ii) that Hallak does not teach a state-based trigger for system-wide bi-directional synchronous data replication status between consistency groups directly and automatically invalidates specific local write delegations since Hallak fails to disclose any type of synchronous data replication. The Examiner notes that the rejection is based on a combination of references including teachings from Lin and is not rejected solely by Natanzon or Hallak. In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Additionally, the applicant argues that automatically expiring write delegations during an out-of-sync state could lead to a “data lockout” that contradicts the primary goal of references like Natanzon. The Examiner respectfully disagrees, the Examiner notes that the primary reference is Narasingarayanapeta where Natanzon was provided to illustrate the concept of concurrent read/write access including ability to serve inflight I/O operations with both Narasingarayanapeta and Lin illustrating concepts associated with handling conflicting access. Therefore, applicant’s arguments against the portions of the Natanzon reference which were not relied upon in the current 35 USC 103 rejection are not persuasive.
Applicant's arguments (see section 2 on page 18 through page 19) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that a system with a sequencer to grant delegations would have no need for an independent component to acquire range lock for the same delegation since it could create a conflicting locking layer and that a person of ordinary skill in the art increases the risk of deadlock. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. As noted in the 35 USC 103 rejection, the Lin reference complements Narasingarayanapeta’s teachings by being able to increase the amount of concurrent access to a file/inode by being able to sequence multiple accesses to the file(s) while ensuring that conflicts don’t occur by locking portions of the file so that other users can’t simultaneously modify/edit the same portion of the file instead of exclusively locking the entire file which would prevent large number of users from accessing the file even for reading even though the exclusive lock would modify just a small portion of the file. Therefore, without any additional evidence to the contrary, applicant’s conclusory remarks are not persuasive and the respective rejection still stands.
Applicant's arguments (see section 3 on page 19) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that there is a lack of motivation to combine including (a) the references serve different primary purposes including data replication (Natanzon), write sequencing (Lin) and local conflict management (Narasingarayanapeta) with no “clear reason” or “reasoned explanation” in the art to link a local range lock to a global replication status; and (b) unexpected results since combining the different references and purposes could lead to “unpredictable results” including crashing the primary storage site. The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
In response to applicant’s argument (a) that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, the Examiner provided articulated reasoning and rationale for their combination including by allowing multiple users access the same file thus expanding upon the concurrent access to the server system by also allowing multiple users to access the same file, albeit with different ranges especially for modifying/writing the file with the motivation/rationale discussed in the 35 USC 103 rejection. With regard to applicant’s argument (b), at least the Lin reference already discusses concepts and procedures to revoke locks in at least paragraph 95 and 110 with an acknowledgement that networked systems can have issues such as network failures or outages where Hallak was provide to illustrate a teaching that when a lock is already issued to a system that has experienced one such failure, instead of keeping the lock and thus deadlocking and blocking all others from the file/inode, the system can include means to revoke locks for systems that haven’t completed but suffered some network outage/failure. Since the references already discussed this issue, there does not appear to be any unexpected result but rather expected results since the references are expecting this to occur and have means to handle it. Accordingly, applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
Applicant's arguments (see last paragraph on page 19 through page 20) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues that the various cited prior a cited prior art references do not teach the amended limitations. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant's arguments fail to comply with 37 CFR 1.111(b) because they amount to a general allegation that the claims define a patentable invention without specifically pointing out how the language of the claims patentably distinguishes them from the references.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARC S SOMERS whose telephone number is (571)270-3567. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 11-8 EST.
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/MARC S SOMERS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2159 7/1/2026
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